Two astronauts, accompanied by their robot, set out to explore the surface of Venus. Things seem to be going well until violent changes begin to rework the surface. Will they be able to escape the planet with their lives? This film is also known as "Prehistoric Planet" and "Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet".
This film began life as a Soviet-produced work. An American producer then added some new footage and changed the credits to hide the film's Soviet origin.
The original film, "Planeta Bur", is also known as "Cosmonauts on Venus", "Planet of Storms", "Planet of Tempests", "Planeta Burg", and "Storm Planet".
You can find more information regarding this film on its IMDb page.
Credits
Basil Rathbone
Faith Domergue
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
with Marc Shannon
Christopher Brand
John Bix
Lewis Keane
Robert Chantal
Kurt Boden
Associate Producer
Stephanie Rothman
Director of Photography..Vilis Lapenieks
Production Manager.......Gary Kurtz
Sound....................Harold Garver
Costume Supervisor.......Sharon Compton
Make-Up..................William Condos
Hair Styles..............George Spicer
Property Master..........Carl Schanzer
Film Editor..............Leo Shreve
Art Director.............Albert Locatelli
Set Decorator............Leon Smith
Script Supervisor........Barbara Bohrer
Sound Effects............Nelson-Corso
Re-recording.............Producer's Sound Service
Filmed in Pathecolor
Filmed in Super-Mud-O-Vision and obviously overdubbed with stilted, unnatural dialogue, this is one cheesy flick. The movie features a robot that looks
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like the godfather of the Transformers. It is large, clunky, difficult to assemble and not really all-terrain, but apparently it was essential for them to drag this piece of machinery all the way to Venus. The dialogue sounds like what I imagine aliens would sound like if they were pretending to be human. The acting is strange, to say the least. You'd expect them to act as if they are overcome with the wonders of this amazing prehistoric planet that they have the privilege to be the first people to explore. Instead, everyone involved seems mildly annoyed. Overall, it's a typical schlocky 60's sci-fi. If you're into those, you'll probably like it. If not, it's excruciating.
Reviewer:
guyzilla
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favoritefavorite -
March 6, 2009 Subject:
SEE THE ORIGINAL CUT
I've seen this film and Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women a zillion times. Both are fun to watch, but should you get to watch or obtain a copy
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of Paneta Berg, the original Soviet edition, take it. It would be like comparing Godzilla King Of The Monsters to Gojira. Maybe I could put a copy of it up one of these days
Reviewer:
sciwriter
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favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
January 3, 2008 Subject:
Coexistence on the screen
Surprisingly this film excludes a slogan such as "Gaut Klaatu barada nikto" iN "Day the Earth stood still (USA-1951) and "anta odeli uta" in "Aleta (USSR,
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1924)." Nevertheless this film is a good example of USA-Soviet coooperation in movie making in the 1920's when Douglas Fairbanks Sr& Buster Keaton visited Moscow, followed by Sergei Eisenstein in Hollywood in 1930's and Burt Lancaster in Moscow in 1950's.
Reviewer:
maniezatheli
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favoritefavoritefavorite -
December 25, 2007 Subject:
good
the quality of the film is good. if we compare with today film... of course this suck. but remember, back in 60's, there is no intel core duo. if this
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film originally made by soviet,,, american is suck. well, from the begining america built from other country workforce.even today, they hired other national to become their worker.
Reviewer:
Matthew Craig
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favoritefavoritefavorite -
July 30, 2007 Subject:
Interesting piece of history...
I enjoyed this film for it was an interesting slice of period culture. This is very reminiscent of spaceship science fiction writing around that time,
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where there were so many unknowns that anything was possible. You can tell what elements would stand out to viewers of those times because the producers spent so much time creating them: the robot, the plant-monster alien, and especially the sets at the beginning of the movie. While the dialog is lacking (yes, there is cliche after cliche - but were they cliches back then?), the story is not all that uninteresting. Far from thinking this was a B-movie, I thought it was more of a typical low-budget sci-fi, with no more scientific holes than today's Hollywood attempts. Sci-fi fans may find many things to enjoy, including insight into the hopes and fears of the people living in the space program's early years. I do not think anyone but hard science fiction fans would enjoy this movie, so you may want skip this if you are looking for something more exciting or moving.
Reviewer:
Randy Wilharm
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favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
May 21, 2007 Subject:
Originally titled "Planeta Burg".
What this movie amounts to is Roger Corman's effort to redress the Soviet movie "Planeta Burg" (Planet of storms) for the american cinema. Faith Domergue
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plays an astronaut named Marcia. In Planeta Burg this part was played by another woman and she was called "Masha". In many scenes we can see the Soviet actors calling her by the russian name "Masha". This is only a minor example of Corman's genius at work but worth mentioning. I have read that either this or Queen of Blood is Basil Rathbone's final screen appearance. This (along with Faith Domergue) must have been the closest thing to good billing for this movie. As far as reviewing this movie is concerned, I think it is important for the critic to note that this amounts to two productions and not one, since 90% of "Voyage to a prehistoric planet" was produced in the former U.S.S.R. as the original "Planeta Burg". In several scenes russian lettering is briefly visible on the rockets. Like another reviewer in this column, I too saw this movie for the first time in the 1970's when I was a kid. I loved it then and I love it now. I downloaded the MPEG2 version (a whopping 1.7gig) and I got a beautiful download, almost professional quality. If one sees the movie in the right perspective it is definately worth four stars.
Reviewer:
Forcemaster2000
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favoritefavoritefavorite -
September 9, 2006 Subject:
Fun for bored sci-fi fans
I remember watching this movie as a teenager late at night on a Saturday on a local TV station. It looked just as bad back then as it does today, but
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it was still fun to watch...if for no other reason than picking out it's flaws. The movie actually has a plot, although it sometimes seems to wander from it for very little reason. But considering that this was a Russian-made film that Roger Corman hacked up and pieced back together with new footage, it still manages to keep mostly on track. If you haven't got anything better to do, this movie can be fun to watch, especially if you force some of your friends to watch it with you!
Reviewer:
billbarstad
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favorite -
April 22, 2006 Subject:
Not so funny
This stinker, a sister to 'Planet of the Prehistoric Women,' is not nearly as funny. There are more sets, creatures and 'drama' but I found myself aching
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for it to end. Earlier, I had just watched that waste of celluloid, 'Flight to Nowhere,' and this film made it seem good. I downloaded the mpeg4. The audio was fine and the video too.
a rework of a russian film by Roger Corman.The last two reviews are right when they say its a bad film. So what? its a Roger Corman film.Which makes it
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well worth seeing for Corman fans.It really is pretty good if you like old Scifi of that era. Yes, it is an odd film but when did Roger give us anything less?
Reviewer:
terracesider
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favorite -
March 30, 2006 Subject:
If you liked Ed Wood, you'll love this.
Intrepid astronauts travel to Venus. Assisted by Robot John, they find traces of an underwater civilisation, along the way meeting carniverous rubber
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plants, clay dinosaurs, a terrifying (albeit somewhat tatty) perydactyl and a mysterious sirenic voice. This is movie making at its glorious worst. The sfx look like footage rejected as substandard by the silent version of The Lost World. The dialogue (seee jimelenas review) had me hanging on for the next cliche. The one saving grace is that the sets are fairly good. One strictly for lovers of the truly awful.
Reviewer:
jimelena
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favorite -
March 27, 2006 Subject:
Not so good
They had Basil, so that's good. Evidently they just couldn't find any other actors. Everyone speaks slowly in monotone. See how long you can last before
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it gets to you.
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